


This Is No M'aidez [The Shame Remix]

by Kiyaar



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, Bad Sex, Captain America Vol. 5 (2005), Crying, Execute Program, Extremis, First Time, Iron Man Vol. 4 (2005), M/M, Mutual Pining, Porn with Feelings, pre civil war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-15 20:06:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13620750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiyaar/pseuds/Kiyaar
Summary: After the events of Execute Program, Tony shows up on Steve's doorstep with a file folder.





	This Is No M'aidez [The Shame Remix]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [navaan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/gifts).
  * Inspired by [A Sense of Calm (The Before the Storm Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13547574) by [navaan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan). 



> This relay is part of a chain; you can find the full [masterlist](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Cap_Ironman_Relay_Remix_2018/profile) on the Collection profile page.

Steve has been riding the bright edge of anger for the last few days. Wake up angry, slam doors harder than normal. Actively resent.

This isn’t new. Sometimes, he takes himself off the team. In his head, just for the weekend. He drives out here on his bike and he does normal things, laundry, dishes, runs away from that feeling of _let me_ that rears its head when he thinks he’s really, truly, about to die.

Sometimes he tells himself he’s not going back. That he’ll climb on his bike and head west and do something different. It’s a lie; he always goes back.

Tony has been crying. His eyes are puffy and his hair is peroxide yellow and his chin is covered in day-old stubble. He’s wearing sweatpants with his wallet jammed in the waistband. He’s clutching a meaty file folder to his chest.

Steve stands there with his hand on the bare brick and turns his back and walks up the stairs.

He hears the door shut, hears Tony’s softer, tentative footsteps.

“Is Sharon here,” Tony says in the monotone he usually gets when he’s been up for days. Steve resents that, too. He hates that he cares. He doesn’t have any pity after that bullshit Tony pulled on him. He doesn’t want to make nice right now. Doesn’t want to give an inch.

Steve smiles something pinched and forced, throws his arms wide. “Does it look like Sharon’s here, Tony?”

Tony drifts around the living area. He toes at the file folders strewn over Steve’s floor, doesn’t comment on how they got there. He turns a picture of Bucky’s brainwashed face over.

Tony opens his mouth. “I meant what I said, if you need–”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Tony holds his hands up and slides himself onto a barstool. He fingers through Steve’s mail, sets his folder down, runs his fingers over the keys to Steve’s bike. He threads his fingers through his hair. “Ok,” he says in that voice that Steve has come to recognize as backpedaling from a transgression. “I came to apologize.”

The response should be rote: _it happens, isn’t the first time, won’t be the last._

“How could you do that,” is what Steve says.

Tony’s eyes widen, a little. “Are you asking me how I could save your life? Because if it’s you or me it’s not really a question–”

“Do you know how many times I’ve watched your heart stop,” Steve says. “I thought we were past that.”

Tony sighs. “We _are_ past it, my heart is fine–”

“I gave you CPR for thirty seven minutes,” Steve snaps, and his voice echoes off the brick. “They announced you DOA, Tony before you did your creepy Lazarus bit, so don’t sit there and tell me it’s _fine._ ”

Tony has the _gall_ to shrug. “Would you rather be dead,” he says. “Because that’s the other option, Steve–”

Steve slams the coffeepot on the counter just hard enough for a spider web crack to sneak up the side of the carafe.

“That’s your excuse,” Steve says, and blinks and blinks because he’s ruining Tony’s coffee. He rummages in the cabinet for his French press, shoves his kettle in the sink, opens the coffee bag so forcefully he rips the side of it. “You’re really gonna commit to your stupid sacrifice play–”

“–I don’t understand why you’re so upset,” Tony says. “I’m ok now–”

“I don’t understand _this_ ,” Steve says, and whirls around so he can gesture at Tony’s whole body. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, I don’t like that this is the second time in two months that you’ve almost died–”

“I’m not asking you to like it,” Tony says icily, “People don’t like what they don’t understand–”

“Don’t start with me,” Steve snaps, “I don’t like it when you conveniently forget you’re on a team.”

“I didn’t forget,” Tony says.

“Then what,” Steve says. “Did you just decide we were all moving too slow for you and you were gonna become a cyborg?”

A flinch goes through Tony. “I’m still baseline human–”

“Are you, Tony?” He slams the door to the fridge and it swings back open; he’s dented the frame and the seal. He swears, he puts it back in place. “Because your heart stopped and then it started again, so tell me what that is.”

Tony looks at the broken fridge and Steve is suddenly, acutely aware of his ugly, seething anger.

“I can see it’s a bad time,” Tony says, finally. His face settles into something distant and businesslike and Christ, Steve is so fucking tired of masks. “I know you’re under a lot of stress,” Tony carries on, and he hops off the stool, grabs his stupid file folder and pats his pockets like he’s looking for his wallet.

It’s such a small human gesture. It melts him.

He catches Tony’s hand. He is gentle. He keeps his grip loose, he keeps his touch light. “Tony,” he says.

Tony lets him do it – fatigue, or weariness has overtaken him for now. He’s never worn it well. “Let go of me,” he says quietly. He doesn’t pull away. It’s halfhearted at best.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says. “Stay a while. I’ll make you coffee.”

Tony twines his fingers with Steve’s and slides onto the barstool.

It’s too intimate for what they are. Insomnia and helplessness erode those little boundaries, but Tony just sits there and rubs at his temples and doesn’t pull his hand away. “I don’t know what to say to you,” he says, small and defeated.

Steve sits next to him, turns Tony’s hand over in his own. Perfect. No scars, no record of all the things he’s built, all the things he’s fixed with his own blood. “I thought I was watching you die,” Steve says, and he is suddenly, quietly seething.

Tony smiles a sad smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m here, aren’t I? And so are you.”

Steve can’t bring himself to let go of Tony’s hand. He rubs his thumb over Tony’s callouses.

“I’ll take myself off the team,” Tony offers. “Those were extraordinary circumstances, but I was a liability, I’ll be the first to admit it–”

“Don’t make me go through that again,” Steve says. “Tony, I can’t do that again. I can’t keep doing it. I can’t.” He bites it off.

Tony looks at him like he’s trying to see through to that dark place that Steve is so good at burying, and Steve meets his eyes for a fraction of a second before he’s pulling his hand away and drifting back around the island to fix Tony’s coffee.

“You can be mad at me,” Tony says. “But I am not responsible for your survivor’s guilt, that’s not fair.”

Steve breaks the mug. He’s vaguely aware of the coffee spilling over the side of the counter. He steers himself to the sink, tears in his eyes. He fumbles with the faucet, runs his hand under cold water. It doesn’t matter, he’ll heal. Nothing is permanent.

“Let me see,” Tony says, and he’s there, forcing Steve to open his fist, hot and warm and alive. “Ok, hey, I’m sorry,” Tony says, “Look, you’re already healing–”

Steve feels exposed, feels violent and blunt and ashamed of what he is, how he is when he comes here to rattle himself around until he feels like he can rejoin the living. He doesn’t expect visitors. Tony always blindsides him.

“I hate this,” Steve says. “It’s all of it, all at once – this Bucky thing. And you. And. I didn’t think I was going to be around people.”

“Surely I rate higher than just _people_ ,” Tony says, holding his hand back under the water.

“You do,” Steve croaks.

It doesn’t take much; Tony is right there, hot and solid and alive. Whole. Pressed up against Steve’s side.

It is nothing and everything to turn his head and lean in the last few inches and kiss him.

Steve panics briefly. He so rarely lets his guard down, he doesn’t _do this,_ and it’s a sloppy excuse, it was poorly executed, Tony is going to push him away and make a joke about how Steve needs to wait for his brain cells to regenerate after all that choking –

Tony kisses him back. Pulls away. Brings one hand up to Steve’s face, thumbs at the tear that’s trickled down over Steve’s lips. “Steve,” he says. “Talk to me.”

Steve is starving; what can he do? He leans into Tony’s touch and does it again.

Tony kisses like he’s trying to solve a puzzle. Like he’s somehow grown a sixth sense along with that new fancy gold skin of his and he’s trying to work out whether or not Steve is full of bullshit. Butterfly kisses to his bottom lip, gentle nips where the slick inside of Steve’s mouth meets his. He draws it out, drags his teeth over Steve’s lower lip, gives him the faintest edge of tongue. Testing for boundaries he won’t find.

Steve doesn’t want that. He’s greedy. He crowds Tony against the island, hops him up on the counter, and Tony goes, wrapping his legs around Steve’s waist. It’s novel, having Tony tower over him. Tony must decide it’s ok, because he tangles his fingers in Steve’s hair, commits to _taking_ , pulls him in and turns their kiss filthier, more desperate.

He shouldn’t, Tony shouldn’t, he’s a _mess –_

Steve pulls away. “Tony,” he says helplessly.

Tony slides off the counter, doesn’t let him leave, wraps his arms tentatively around Steve’s waist. “What is this for you?” Tony whispers. “Tell what’s going through your head.”

 _I’m afraid of you,_ Steve could say. _I’m losing you. I’m losing me._

“Do you think you could want me,” Steve says.

Tony’s voice trembles when he finally answers. “I’ve always wanted you, Steve.”

 

\- - -

 

Steve has imagined this, a lot.

Tony doesn’t push him. They don’t draw the shades. Tony throws his stuff down on the nightstand and they undress each other slowly in the early evening light, they feast. Steve starts crying again and he is able to override the look on Tony’s face by using his mouth and his strength and his body. He likes to think he’s good at this, that he can speak Tony’s language for once, effortlessly. Tony has always said he makes a hell of a speech.

Tony has lost his scars. He’s perfect. He should have electrical burns, at least; Steve has peeled him out of the suit often enough to know that the housing sits close to his chest, that there is bare metal near his major blood vessels where syringes inject him with drugs that can keep him standing. Steve knows just how well Tony’s suit conducts electricity. There’s not even a mark from any of his surgeries.

He crawls into Steve’s unmade bed and props himself there and blushes and waits for Steve to follow him.

Steve lets himself fall.

In Steve’s fantasies, Tony is usually on the bottom. They kiss chest to chest. Tony allows himself to be led, to be held. Steve holds him in his lap and runs his fingers down Tony’s spine. He traces every muscle like he’s doing a figure study. He sucks bruises into Tony’s neck and Tony lets him and whispers in his ear.

Tony isn’t soft. He’s big, he’s heavy. Steve thinks maybe Tony could rough him around with his fancy new biotech. Tony has a way of moving that’s deliberate and restrained; subdued in a way that suggests violence may not be far behind, if requested.

Steve’s cheeks feel hot when he imagines asking for that.

He lies next to Tony. He doesn’t know how to feel about Tony, here, in his bed. It’s too much; it’s an embarrassment of riches. It’s wasted on him. He settles for curling around his body, pressing slow kisses to his lithe neck, skimming his hand up Tony’s chest.

He worries it’s rude, he knows he’s setting some kind of precedent with how hard he is and how randy he’s being, knows he should be better at seduction. He should be more confident, maybe. He dares to skim his hand lower, sucks at Tony’s neck, throws one leg over Tony’s hip. Tries his best not to moan too transparently when Tony rolls over so they’re face to face and grinds them together. He never worried about this with Sharon. Sharon was mouthy, Tony just shifts to meet him the same way Tony anticipates his moves on the battlefield.

“How far do you want to take this,” Tony asks, his voice carefully measured.  

Steve imagines fucking Tony until Tony cries. He lets himself catch Tony’s eyes, and that’s a mistake, because Tony is wide-eyed and reverent and as vulnerable as Steve’s ever seen him. Steve can’t stand the tenderness of it. It’s possible Steve is a monster.

Steve looks at Tony’s chest, at the lines of his thighs, at his cock starting to plump out against his thigh.

“As far as you’ll let me,” Steve says.

He rolls them over, Tony on his back, Steve over him. He nudges Tony’s knees apart, presses his thigh against the warmth between Tony’s legs.

Tony gasps a little and Steve feels drunk with the power. He did that. Emboldened, he smoothes his hand down Tony’s chest, and Tony lays back, watches him with wariness and hunger, both. He runs his fingers over Tony’s balls and realizes he’s holding his breath. The shape of Tony mesmerizes him; he would do this forever if Tony would let him.

He gets a handful of Tony’s cock. He just wants to feel him. He’s been here. It doesn’t feel real, he’s half-convinced he’s in an illusion. He slides Tony’s skin up and down, a single stroke. He can feel the adrenaline spike, and if this is what touching Tony does to him he never wants to stop –

Tony’s hips turn gold, there’s that weird liquid metal racing across his skin.

He doesn’t make the conscious decision to pull his hand away from Tony like he’s been burnt, but he does, and it happens, and it’s not fair.

Tony, because he’s Tony, is the one that ends up apologizing while Steve opens and closes his mouth like a coward.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Tony is saying. He’s hiding his face in his own shoulder, one arm thrown over his eyes. “I’m just. Give me a minute.”

Steve sits back on his heels and learns what it’s like to be the source of all misery in the universe.

“It’s ok,” he says, more for himself than for Tony. He looks at the wall behind the headboard. “Are you ok?”

Tony takes a while to answer. “I’m wondering if I’m something you’re going to regret tomorrow,” he breathes. “I’m wondering if you want all of me.”

Steve wants to ask why Tony couldn’t have written that part out when he made all those fucking upgrades – the part of him that’s convinced that no one could ever want him as he is.

“Why do you say things like that,” Steve says.

“I’m also wondering if it's just some body you're after,” Tony says, quieter. “Or if you’re just lonely and I’m just here.”

Whatever Steve had worked up, it vanishes, just like that.

“When things like this happen, I worry I’m dead,” Tony presses on.

“Things like what,” Steve croaks.

Tony is crying; Steve can only tell because his face is shining and wet. “Good things,” Tony says, staring at the ceiling.

Tony has a way of putting Steve’s darkness in perspective.  

“Tony,” Steve says helplessly.

“Why don’t you fuck me,” Tony says, and they’re the wrong words, Steve hates how casually he says it. He wiggles up the bed, pulls his knees up, drags one of Steve’s pillows under his body. Waits, like he’s content to go along with whatever happens to him. “We both clearly need it,” Tony says, and something’s shifted. He throws it out like it’s nothing, like Steve could be anyone. “As long as you’re not mind-controlling me,” he says. The joke doesn’t land; it’s just them and Tony’s sniffling and the recycled air hissing on in the exposed ductwork.

“Tony,” Steve says.

“Steve, please just do something,” Tony says to the ceiling. “Just tell me you want me,” he says, soft enough for a normal man to miss.

“I can’t tell you how much I want you,” Steve tells him.

Tony inhales sharply. “I mean, you don’t have to lie,” Tony says.

Steve runs a hand over his face to swab away his own tears. It smells like sex, it smells like Tony.

“Can I get you off, at least,” Steve says, like it’s a transaction and they’re strangers.

“I’d like that,” Tony whispers, like he’s ashamed.

Steve looks at the rest of him instead. He tries to remind himself that this is a luxury. He needs to savor it. He tries to memorize Tony and thinks about someone finding them like this, thinks of all the cheap things they would say about them. Thinks of how many cheap things people have already said about Tony. He wraps his hand around Tony again, rolls his balls in his palm, thinks that the least he can do is make Tony feel something good.

Steve is crying again, and this time it just sluices down his face, hot and itchy and he’s proud that Tony doesn’t notice. Tony’s hips are gold again and his face is buried in his arm and he’s quivering but he moans Steve’s name and Steve feels himself harden a little and bends to take Tony’s cock in his mouth so Tony’s won’t notice.

Tony doesn’t stop him, doesn’t ask for a condom. Steve sucks him with his tongue jammed up against the underside of Tony’s cock, drool sliding down his chin, and Tony’s hands eventually find his head and tangle in his hair.

Tony fucks up into his mouth and it gets a little better.

It’s not what he wanted, not exactly, but it’s closer. It’s further away from kindness. It’s more like a favor. It’s more impersonal. He probably would have died if he’d been allowed inside Tony’s body. It’s probably not the sort of drug you can try just once.

Tony bumps up against the back of his throat. “Sorry,” Steve hears. “I’m sorry.” Steve grabs Tony’s hips and takes him until he’s swallowing compulsively to avoid retching all over the bed: _you don’t need to be sorry_. It does the trick – Tony sighs and some of the tension goes out of him. He strokes a thumb over Steve’s cheek. He finds his rhythm again, and Steve vaguely realizes it’s happening, it’s going to be over. It’s going to be a memory.

“I’m going to come,” Tony says. “Fuck, Steve, _Steve_ ,” he breathes.

Steve thinks the least he can do is swallow, so he works Tony through it, holds him there on his tongue while he twitches and spurts down Steve’s throat.

Steve can’t bear to wipe his mouth, so he just drags himself up the bed, lies beside Tony.  
  
"Was that ok," Steve murmurs. He wants to be gentle. He feels dull and wrung out and the furthest thing from kind there is, but he can do a fair approximation for Tony.   
  
Tony nods. "I didn't," he starts. Sucks in a deep breath. "Let me get you off."   
  
Steve shakes his head. "Later, maybe. I can wait another day." He tries on a smile.    
  
Tony starts to cry again. 

“Tell me what to do,” Steve implores, “Tell me what to do to help you.”

Tony rolls to face him. They’re nose to nose; they’re close enough to breathe each other’s air.

Tony leans forward, kisses Steve, and Steve should have known that he was never going to get all of Tony, just pieces, just like it’s always been. Tony’s too big. Larger than life. Tony licks around Steve’s mouth like he’s going off to war and he intends to make an impression. It seems like it lasts forever. It’s almost enough.

“Better?” Steve lets himself smile. He almost feels it. This thing can be salvaged, he knows it.  

Tony rolls over onto his back. “Let’s just sleep,” he says, like he’s a thousand miles away. “I'm sorry. Just be here with me.”

Steve doesn’t know where else he’d go.

 

\- - -

 

Steve doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever get to have this again. It feels like goodbye, which is ridiculous. The sun will rise again, tomorrow. They’ll be on the same team. This Extremis thing, it’s just another thing. Even if this raw thing between them doesn’t survive, their friendship always has.

He watches, for a while. Tony’s skin turns pale as death in the blue hours of the morning. It makes the shadow under his eyes stark, the rise and fall of his chest seem fragile. He watches as the golden hour dawns and Tony seems to soften in the beams that fall through his enormous picture windows.

The unfairness of it burns in him. He is a greedy man; he wants to cradle Tony to his chest, he wants to wake him up with a kiss, he wants to comb Tony’s body for his off-switch and break it so he can have Tony’s undivided attention forever. He wants this, again.

He lets Tony sleep. He lies on his back, aware that there is a body next to him and there is a wall between them and it is his fault. Tony’s eyes dart behind his closed eyelids and Steve thinks about the way they went eerie and white when Tony sent that pulse through himself, thinks about the way his body jerked as the arc brought the ceiling down on them.

He gently, gently kisses Tony’s forehead and reaches over him for the file folder.

Tony’s hand covers his before he can slide it off the nightstand.

“Top-secret?” Steve jokes, mirthless, and Tony looks up at him and blinks sleep out of his eyes and almost leans up to kiss him before he thinks better of it and turns his face away.

“No,” Tony tells him, covering himself with the sheet, rolling over to turn his back to Steve. “It’s not important.”

**Author's Note:**

> • Thank you for reading, I hope you suffered some  
> .  
> • Comments sustain me! Really. Anything.  
> • Here is a [rebloggable tumblr post](http://kiyaar.tumblr.com/post/171500025803/fic-this-is-no-maidez-the-shame-remix) if the spirit moves you.  
> • I am [kiyaar](http://kiyaar.tumblr.com/) on tumblr and [here on twitter](https://twitter.com/besafesteve).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Scraping Up the Pieces](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13644546) by [Robin_tCJ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Robin_tCJ/pseuds/Robin_tCJ)




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